Southern Ocean Heating - re: "Irreversible" on SA headline

[IPLore]

I had a friend who argued that emissions from Internal Combustion Engines (ICE) were not damaging the atmosphere. I am a fairly open minded fellow, so we decided to test his thesis. He agreed to be locked in his garage with the engine to his pick up running.

I will miss our conversations.

On the bright side, he had recently been vaccinated , so it was another damning statistic adding to the number of people dying within a month of getting vaccinated.

 

[Steam Flyer]

That was mean.

Fuck I love this place!

 

[SeanPurdy]

When you scratch hard on their "data", there's not (yet) a lot of foundation built to fully support their "facts".

Before you say anything else on this subject, you should acquaint yourself with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

If you don't have time to read any of their actual reports, try this infographic:
https://eciu.net/analysis/infographics/ipcc-science-of-climate-change

 

[dogwatch]

The weather is hard to predict seven days out, and they think modeling everything will tell them the real story. If there were never any humans on this planet, climate change would still be happening, just like it has since there was a climate to change.

Climate isn't weather. Weather is hard to predict because small charges today diverge to large changes in a week's time. Climate means long-term parameters and it isn't like that. The global temperature is driven by the balance between incoming energy from the Sun and outgoing energy radiated by the Earth. We know the energy coming from the Sun to four significant figures. Such variation as takes place over timescales of years or decades is in the fifth significant figure. Basic first year university physics is enough to run the calculation that shows that the Earth would freeze were it not for the effect of greenhouse gases, mostly naturally occurring.

So far so good. But ice cores taken from glaciers well away from human populations shows the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased markedly since we started to burn coal, oil and gas. If you substantially increase the concentration of a greenhouse gas like CO2, the climate will warm significantly. We know that in the industrial era we have caused such an increase because we can and have measured it. There is zero serious scientific controversy about that and its first-level consequences. It's just simple physics and chemistry.

What isn't so clear is how far or fast climate change will progress with a given elevation in atmospheric CO2. That depends on feedback effects which are not so well understood or easy to test. But personally, if I were in a burning building, I would not be asking for a fully reliable prediction on when it will collapse before I got the hell out.

 

[EYESAILOR]

we must "stop carbon dioxide emissions and achieve net zero" now. That sounds like more of a political agenda

we must stop carbon dioxide emissions as stated in the referenced article. That statement is so oversimplified. It’s not about politics,

You are sending mixed messages about whether you think that climate change is a political issue or a scientific bi-partisan issue. On balance, I'm guessing that for you it is about political belief not science. Call it a gut instinct.

We can start with a couple of very simple questions, that don't even look at climate change, but at clearly measurable data.

I am making the basic assumption that you accept that the molecule CO2 (carbon dioxide) is real and that we can measure the composition of gasses (Nitrogen, Oxygen, Argon, CO2, Neon, Helium, Methane and other trace gasses) in a cubic meter of air using a spectroscope with a high degree of accuracy.

Question #1 .
Do you agree that the quantity of CO2 in our atmosphere has increased significantly in the last 100 years and more specifically from 316 parts per million (ppm) in 1958 to to 421 ppm in May 2022?
Do you accept the raw, unbiased data from the Mauna Loa observatory, the NOAA observatories, the Antarctic observatory and NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2?

Question # 2
Do you agree that infrared rays (heat) pass through oxygen and nitrogen unimpeded, and that CO2 absorbs infrared rays and then radiates the heat. ? It is easily verifiable by simple high school level experiments.

We are not listening to any political views here, or scientific conclusions about climate change, just two simple verifiable data points, to see if we can agree on some basics.....or if politics creeps in at even the most basic level.

 

[papa whelk]

2’

It’s about frustration with the methodology and a lot of the basis of the science used in a lot of climate science (and other recent issues such as Covid) debates. Whenever anyone makes a statement that the science is settled, you should immediately either question their credentials or their agenda. Science is always about asking questions even on what is considered reliable data. As one who lives on the coast in a hurricane zone with first hand experience of the frequency and intensity of hurricanes over 50 years, I get weary of apocalyptic statements similar to we must stop carbon dioxide emissions as stated in the referenced article. That statement is so oversimplified. It’s not about politics, it‘s about showing accurate data to discuss, debate, and try to draw conclusions from.

Take a look at our own sport. Do you think the science is settled? I know you don’t. If you can, take a read of the WSJ Op-Ed above I referenced above. I read that Op-Ed before I read the article this thread references. It inspired me!

It's a bit concerning that anyone would find that particuar op-ed "inspiring" when it asserts so many brazen falsehoods.


"What did Faraday do? Well, if there was no Faraday, there would be no modern economy. A former bookbinder who studied magnetics, in 1820 he noted that electricity applied to a loop of wire could get a magnet to move through it, an insight that produced the electric motor found in every fan, vacuum cleaner, washing machine and electric car. Faraday then turned his own thinking inside out. In 1831 he invented the dynamo, an inverse motor. Moving a loop of wires around a fixed magnet can induce electricity. Place a dynamo next to running water, like Niagara Falls, and you can generate reliable electricity.

No Faraday, no communications. By running electricity down a long wire to an electromagnetic relay switch, you can ring a bell. This innovation became the telegraph, telephone and today’s wireless devices, which are all based on Faraday’s induction.
No Faraday, no computers. The 1945 Eniac computer used those same electromagnetic relays, open representing zero and closed representing one. While today’s semiconductors are based on the quantum effect—thank theoretical physicists Niels Bohr and Max Planck for that—they need gobs of electricity for power, which Faraday’s work helps generate."

ALL those things would, of course, now exist even without the contributions of Faraday. At most, they would have been delayed a few years. Current scientists build from the mountains of evidence accrued by the work of the scientists who preceded them. While there may be a largely abstract sense in which "science is never settled", in practice we build upon the science that is indeed settled for all intents and purposes. There are good reasons why serious people don't still debate the spherical nature of the planets or the fact that the planets orbit the sun or that microbes cause infection or that energy can not be created or destroyed but only altered in form---or that human behavior has played a role in climate change. It doesn't mean that those things aren't debatable because anything can be argued about. It just means that serious educated people, don't waste time there.

 

[EYESAILOR]

It's a bit concerning that anyone would find that particuar op-ed "inspiring" when it asserts so many brazen falsehoods.


"What did Faraday do? Well, if there was no Faraday, there would be no modern economy. A former bookbinder who studied magnetics, in 1820 he noted that electricity applied to a loop of wire could get a magnet to move through it, an insight that produced the electric motor found in every fan, vacuum cleaner, washing machine and electric car. Faraday then turned his own thinking inside out. In 1831 he invented the dynamo, an inverse motor. Moving a loop of wires around a fixed magnet can induce electricity. Place a dynamo next to running water, like Niagara Falls, and you can generate reliable electricity.

No Faraday, no communications. By running electricity down a long wire to an electromagnetic relay switch, you can ring a bell. This innovation became the telegraph, telephone and today’s wireless devices, which are all based on Faraday’s induction.
No Faraday, no computers. The 1945 Eniac computer used those same electromagnetic relays, open representing zero and closed representing one. While today’s semiconductors are based on the quantum effect—thank theoretical physicists Niels Bohr and Max Planck for that—they need gobs of electricity for power, which Faraday’s work helps generate."

ALL those things would, of course, now exist even without the contributions of Faraday. At most, they would have been delayed a few years. Current scientists build from the mountains of evidence accrued by the work of the scientists who preceded them. While there may be a largely abstract sense in which "science is never settled", in practice we build upon the science that is indeed settled for all intents and purposes. There are good reasons why serious people don't still debate the spherical nature of the planets or the fact that the planets orbit the sun or that microbes cause infection or that energy can not be created or destroyed but only altered in form---or that human behavior has played a role in climate change. It doesn't mean that those things aren't debatable because anything can be argued about. It just means that serious educated people, don't waste time there.

Faraday was an extraordinary brilliant mind and scientist. However I agree with you that the rhetorical pomposity of the op ed diminishes his achievements rather than allowing them to stand on their own merit in the context of history.

 

[EYESAILOR]

On a note of optimism, it is worth observing that the OP of this thread, who starts by being concerned about our progress towards a low carbon emission economy and the inevitable demise of the internal combustion engine, concludes by being "inspired" by an op-ed on Faraday.

I read that Op-Ed before I read the article this thread references. It inspired me!

Faraday is the founding father of electromagnetic induction engines, that power Tesla and all the other electric cars that are replacing ICEs.

Perhaps there is hope for anyone and all of us.

 

[Mid]

 

[JiffyLube]

yeah. pretty sure Einstein ain't all there is - plenty controversy about this. settled science just isn't.

you don't have to trust modelling to understand that basic instrument readings - like atmospheric CO2 - have gone absolutely bonkers since the industrial revolution. that's on us.

Back in the day of the when the Egyptians were building the pyramids (assuming they were the ones that built them), artifacts of large sailing craft were unearthed in an ancient harbor that went up near one of the pyramids. That would indicate that at least 4,000 years ago the river water level was up close to the pyramids, which is about 5 miles away from the pyramids now. The Nile River either got a lot smaller, or a section of the Nile River to the pyramids dried up because of Climate Change. Then there is the Sahara Desert to ponder. How did that change from a much wetter and greener environment change? I don't even get into all the Ice Ages. No industrial revolutions in those days.

 

[JiffyLube]

Climate isn't weather. Weather is hard to predict because small charges today diverge to large changes in a week's time. Climate means long-term parameters and it isn't like that. The global temperature is driven by the balance between incoming energy from the Sun and outgoing energy radiated by the Earth. We know the energy coming from the Sun to four significant figures. Such variation as takes place over timescales of years or decades is in the fifth significant figure. Basic first year university physics is enough to run the calculation that shows that the Earth would freeze were it not for the effect of greenhouse gases, mostly naturally occurring.

So far so good. But ice cores taken from glaciers well away from human populations shows the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased markedly since we started to burn coal, oil and gas. If you substantially increase the concentration of a greenhouse gas like CO2, the climate will warm significantly. We know that in the industrial era we have caused such an increase because we can and have measured it. There is zero serious scientific controversy about that and its first-level consequences. It's just simple physics and chemistry.

What isn't so clear is how far or fast climate change will progress with a given elevation in atmospheric CO2. That depends on feedback effects which are not so well understood or easy to test. But personally, if I were in a burning building, I would not be asking for a fully reliable prediction on when it will collapse before I got the hell out.

"But personally, if I were in a burning building, I would not be asking for a fully reliable prediction on when it will collapse before I got the hell out."

Hahahaha, that's funny.

 

[casc27]

I notice how whenever "climate change" is discussed, there is a tendency for the "deniers" to wander toward an argument that borders on fate, rather than free will, governs our life on the planet.
It's a religious view that has not served humanity well, and continues to wreak havoc with our ability to solve problems in a rational way.
The subject of climate change, and human survivability on earth, is actually quite simple. Man has the ability to wipe the human race from the face of the planet. In more than one way. Will we succumb to hand wringing, and praying, or will we take our place in the world.
The hand wringers and prayers may lose by winning.
I hope not.
I personally would rather we stop the leak, than sink with the ship.

People like to be in control but not responsible. "Lemme do whatever I want...It's not my fault." Climate change makes me glad I am not 30...by a long shot.

 

[Steam Flyer]

Back in the day of the when the Egyptians were building the pyramids (assuming they were the ones that built them), artifacts of large sailing craft were unearthed in an ancient harbor that went up near one of the pyramids. That would indicate that at least 4,000 years ago the river water level was up close to the pyramids, which is about 5 miles away from the pyramids now. The Nile River either got a lot smaller, or a section of the Nile River to the pyramids dried up because of Climate Change. Then there is the Sahara Desert to ponder. How did that change from a much wetter and greener environment change? I don't even get into all the Ice Ages. No industrial revolutions in those days.

The Carthaginians cutting down all the trees in North Africa didn't help.

However, just because you can point to climate change that was definitely not caused by man, doesn't mean that it is necessarily true that NO climate change is ever caused by man. There is a Latin name for this logical fallacy but I forgot it.

 

[JiffyLube]

The Carthaginians cutting down all the trees in North Africa didn't help.

However, just because you can point to climate change that was definitely not caused by man, doesn't mean that it is necessarily true that NO climate change is ever caused by man. There is a Latin name for this logical fallacy but I forgot it.

I agree with you, and I didn't mean to suggest that man has not or will not play a role in it. I am saying that mankind cannot be held entirely responsible for climate change as is speculated by many, but not all scientists. If people study the rise and fall of other great civilizations that existed before the Egyptians, they might find more examples of the effect of climate change. If you believe there was a Great Flood, climate change could have played a role in that too. Earth is a dynamic place, always changing, as is the universe it is in.

 

[stinky]

for perspective:

Earth Temperature Timeline

xkcd.com

 

[dogwatch]

I agree with you, and I didn't mean to suggest that man has not or will not play a role in it. I am saying that mankind cannot be held entirely responsible for climate change as is speculated by many, but not all scientists. If people study the rise and fall of other great civilizations that existed before the Egyptians, they might find more examples of the effect of climate change. If you believe there was a Great Flood, climate change could have played a role in that too. Earth is a dynamic place, always changing, as is the universe it is in.

There are no climate scientists who would assert that there has been no previous climate change. It's well understood that there have been and that significant change over the course of only decades is quite possible, presumably because of feedback effects. That should not make us feel relaxed about continuing with CO2 emissions. On the contrary, the fact that global temperature has been known to shift over a human lifetime should scare the crap out of anyone concerned with the lives of their children or grandchildren.

Of course, on the bright side, we have a known and possibly imminent solution to global warming. Nuclear winter.

 

[Steam Flyer]

Well, aren't you just a little ray of fucking sunshine. Thanks

 

[EYESAILOR]

Back in the day of the when the Egyptians were building the pyramids (assuming they were the ones that built them), artifacts of large sailing craft were unearthed in an ancient harbor that went up near one of the pyramids. That would indicate that at least 4,000 years ago the river water level was up close to the pyramids, which is about 5 miles away from the pyramids now. The Nile River either got a lot smaller, or a section of the Nile River to the pyramids dried up because of Climate Change. Then there is the Sahara Desert to ponder. How did that change from a much wetter and greener environment change? I don't even get into all the Ice Ages. No industrial revolutions in those days.

Hi Jiffy,

Can you clarify your point.

It is uncontroversial that there have been periods of climate change before and that large rivers change their location in very short geological time spans.

Are you suggesting that either
1) This is proof the climate is not changing this time? or
2) This is proof that the increase in the CO2 content in the atmosphere is not caused by burning carbon fossil fuels?

 

[EYESAILOR]

I agree with you, and I didn't mean to suggest that man has not or will not play a role in it.

Sorry...should have read further down the post. You concur that man is playing a role this time...but just pointing out there are previous periods of climate change where man did not play a role. I fully agree with this.

I am saying that mankind cannot be held entirely responsible for climate change as is speculated by many, but not all scientists.

Wow, I am not aware of any scientists who speculate that all climate change was entirely due to mankind . I suppose I should not be surprised. There are scientists who speculate all kinds of crazy stuff (and lets avoid going down the rabbit hole about scientists who believe that Ivermectin cures covid). Sanity is not a requirement to get a phd.

If people study the rise and fall of other great civilizations that existed before the Egyptians, they might find more examples of the effect of climate change. If you believe there was a Great Flood, climate change could have played a role in that too. Earth is a dynamic place, always changing, as is the universe it is in.

I more worried about the fact that I might have to raise my house by 8 feet due to the flood zone being revised in the town I live in.

 

[Marty Gingras]

It is uncontroversial that there have been periods of climate change before and that large rivers change their location in very short geological time spans.

Yep. It's called 'avulsion' in fluvial geomorphology --- the rapid abandonment of a river channel and the formation of a new river channel. Same word for an amputation in medicine, as you know well.